Ever since Waldorf Productions announced that it was leaving the Waldorf Hotel in East Vancouver, the big question has been “What’s next”? The spot, which was renovated extensively by Waldorf Productions, has been purchased by a developer.

Those who’ve been around the city for longer than a couple of years might remember that the East Vancouver tiki landmark wasn’t always one of the city’s coolest multi-use venues. For most of the ’80s and ’90s it was a place where longshoremen went to drink cheap draft at a crappy pub with big-screen TVs, and where bad cover bands would leave you wondering why you didn’t decide to go to the Town Pump instead.

Waldorf Productions turned the Waldorf into the kind of hotspot that attracted the likes of Katy Perry, Skrillex, and the Black Keys, the team’s great trick being that the venue was inclusive enough to make regular folks feel equally welcome. Following its opening in October of 2011, the renovated hotel regularly hosted art shows, film festival openings, standup comedians, as well as uber-cool musical acts ranging from EMA to Black Mountain to Esben and the Witch. Not only that, but you could get honest-to-God mai tais—as opposed to bottles of Molson Canadian—in the Waldorf’s fabulous Tiki bar.

As mentioned, Waldorf Productions cleared out Monday after it was unable to agree on a new lease with the hotel and its new owners. As of Tuesday, the Waldorf Hotel website looked radically different than it did a week ago. What can we expect moving forward? If www.waldorfhotel.com/ is any indication, special events this Saturday include a Sublime covers band. As for the Grove Pub, which is evidently back after being transformed into the restaurant Nuba by Waldorf Productions, there are all sorts of “new and cool” drinks on offer, including Mike’s Hard Lemonade, apple and peach cider, and double paralyzers.

Get ready to to party, especially when that Sublime covers band steps up to the mike and screeches "This is a couple's song—it's called 'Date Rape'!!"

Comments

We're now using Facebook for comments.

11 Comments

Atomic

Jan 23, 2013 at 12:26pm

A poorly run bar is an excellent way to show the city there's no profit to be made at the Waldorf site and probably should rezone.

Sh. s.

J

Jan 23, 2013 at 6:14pm

How do you know the current landlord didn't ask for his old site back? You can't expect Waldorf Productions to just leave the site they were running up forever. In fact, they probably weren't allowed to - judging by twitter etc., it looks like they had to stop using anything with "Waldorf Hotel" in it.

It really just goes to show how great a difference Waldorf Productions made in that space - how much really had changed in so short a time, and now all that's been lost.

Marc the shark

Jan 24, 2013 at 4:01am

@wolfeman, did you ever go to that place before? That was definitely the site from 3 years ago and that place was horrible. No one wanted to develop that area then, and the dorf was a shitty sports bar.

Wolfeman

Jan 24, 2013 at 10:52am

@marc the shark

Yes I'd been there. And I agree with you, it was gross. My comment isn't about whether or not the Waldorf was a keen place for hep cats to party at though. I'm saying, whoever changed that website back was acting like a petulant child upset for not getting their own way, not an adult who should be given the privilege of running a venue.

Marc the shark

Mike Mann

Jan 24, 2013 at 12:57pm

Oh hi Wolfeman!

I built the Waldorf's previous site as an independent contractor for my good friends at Waldorf Productions in September 2010. I was asked for login codes to it from the Waldorf Hotel and wasn't about to hand over my intellectual property without compensation. Were they expecting a complimentary Wordpress tutorial from me as well? Who knows.

If you do a whois search, you will see that the Puharich family has always owned the domain www.waldorfhotel.com. If they were organized, they could have purchased hosting, transferred their domain, and put up a new site as soon as Waldorf Productions announced they were leaving.

But I'm a nice person. So, while the Waldorf Hotel figures out their web strategy going forward, I decided to be helpful and give them back their old site. It would have been a shame to leave them with a blank page as they, presumably, paid someone to write that beautiful example of html.

Guilty as charged if that makes me a petulant child. I've been called worse.